4 ms·

I don't understand the ruling however, something doesn't make sense: - Apple goes to a country and makes a deal with that country - They pay the tax in the co

I don't understand the ruling however, something doesn't make sense: - Apple goes to a country and makes a deal with that country - They pay the tax in the country and they comply with all the rules at that time in Ireland - After a few years the EU government says "hey, Ireland that's not a correct deal" - So they don't punish the Ireland government who didn't comply with EU regulation (as far as I understood) and retroactively charge the tax on Apple, who complied with all the regulation. Doesn't the burden of non-compliance be on the party that broke the EU rules and not the company who complied with all the rules? Several questions arise: - Was Apple breaking any rules in those years when they had the deal with the government? - How can any company be sure that if they comply with current tax laws they won't be back charged in the future? - Isn't that a bad precedent of "we change the rules now", but will punish you for you past behavior for non-complying with the new rules? (e.g. why don't charge back the increase in taxes for this year for the past 3 years) These are not related to the ethical/moral or fairness evaluation of the situation. It's unfair to charge different taxes at all, flat taxes should be the norm, not charge more if you earn more. However the legal logic doesn't seem to be there. Can you help me understand the situation?

kwhitefoot 2y ago
They aren't being punished, they are simply being told to pay the tax that Ireland illegally said they didn't have to pay.
- noirbot 2y ago
  That's a distinction without a difference. Presumably, if Ireland hadn't offered this deal, Apple would have done their business somewhere else. Sure, they may have paid some other country more taxes, but potentially less taxes than what they now owe Ireland. Apple isn't blameless here, but it definitely kinda feels like they got a little bit defrauded by the Irish government who now essentially is getting rewarded with billions of dollars for their illegal conduct.
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    Apple is a lot worse than merely 'isn't blameless'. They knew perfectly well what they were getting into and I'm confident that the current judgment would have been a scenario that their lawyers would have explored. I'm sure that if Apple thinks that they have been hard done by that they could sue the Irish government for damages in the Irish courts.
    - noirbot 2y ago
      I mean, don't you see how that's bad though? Ireland gets to just lie to people, promise them things, profit from their lies and then their courts get to decide if they were wrong? Also, everyone's stating with a lot of confidence that Apple absolutely knew this was illegal under EU law. Is that in evidence in the case? Have there been other prosecutions of other EU states for doing this?
      - stale2002 2y ago
        No, its not bad because it means that companies will be hesitant to do stuff like this in the future.
immibis 2y ago
Apple knew it was evading tax and it's getting punished for evading tax. The law isn't a deterministic Turing machine.

kwhitefoot 2y ago

They aren't being punished, they are simply being told to pay the tax that Ireland illegally said they didn't have to pay.

noirbot 2y ago
That's a distinction without a difference. Presumably, if Ireland hadn't offered this deal, Apple would have done their business somewhere else. Sure, they may have paid some other country more taxes, but potentially less taxes than what they now owe Ireland. Apple isn't blameless here, but it definitely kinda feels like they got a little bit defrauded by the Irish government who now essentially is getting rewarded with billions of dollars for their illegal conduct.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  Apple is a lot worse than merely 'isn't blameless'. They knew perfectly well what they were getting into and I'm confident that the current judgment would have been a scenario that their lawyers would have explored. I'm sure that if Apple thinks that they have been hard done by that they could sue the Irish government for damages in the Irish courts.
  - noirbot 2y ago
    I mean, don't you see how that's bad though? Ireland gets to just lie to people, promise them things, profit from their lies and then their courts get to decide if they were wrong? Also, everyone's stating with a lot of confidence that Apple absolutely knew this was illegal under EU law. Is that in evidence in the case? Have there been other prosecutions of other EU states for doing this?
    - stale2002 2y ago
      No, its not bad because it means that companies will be hesitant to do stuff like this in the future.

immibis 2y ago

Apple knew it was evading tax and it's getting punished for evading tax. The law isn't a deterministic Turing machine.